Four-Day Workweek [Terms and Conditions Apply]

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2023-05-26 21:00:05

The four-day workweek has been a hot topic lately, and for good reason: Three-day weekends every week admittedly sound nice. But how are employers offering it, and is it really all it’s cracked up to be? We have answers.

To understand the prevalence of the four-day workweek, we look at mentions of the policy in US job posting descriptions. We can see that it gained popularity rapidly in 2021, when the Great Resignation saw employers experimenting with new ways to attract talent. However, it has begun falling off over the past year.

What have experimenting employers found? If finding new talent faster has been one of the goals of offering four-day workweeks, the policy seems to work. Comparing job openings within the same industry and role, we find that those that offer a four-day workweek as a perk get filled 13 days faster than jobs with a standard workweek—a time save of over 35% on average.

But four-day workweeks are not all alike. On the surface, the idea behind the policy seems simple: You work four days, you rest three. On closer inspection, however, its implementation can differ drastically from workplace to workplace. Here are the most common versions that we have come across:

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